Why I Finally Decided to Freeze My Credit
I was recently talking with an advisor who had his identity stolen. An attempt had been made to take out a $100,000 loan in his name from his very own bank! Because the bank had sent him numerous emails offering loans that he had sent to junk, the email notifications for this loan had been lost in a spam folder. When he got a letter in the mail notifying him that his loan application had been denied, he called the bank to see what was going on. It turns out someone who had his DOB, SSN, address, and other information was attempting to take out a loan posing as him.
This experience pushed him to do a lot of research and he came to this conclusion that he shared with me. He said “you should assume that your personal information is already out there. If an attempt hasn’t been made to steal your identity, it’s because they either haven’t gotten to you yet or don’t think it’s worth it.” Neither of those reasons brought me much comfort.
While there are all sorts of monitoring services that I have recommended, freezing your credit is the most simple and foolproof way to stop identity theft in its tracks. I had dreaded taking this step because of the inconvenience. There are three credit monitoring services (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). You must freeze your credit on all three. In addition, if you are married, each of you needs to do it individually. That means creating 6 accounts with new logins and passwords for each.
In addition, several years ago we were in the process of refinancing our mortgage and needed our credit file to be open. However, we now have a low mortgage rate and no plans to take on new debt, so I decided to take this step of freezing my credit.
It took me about 30 minutes to set up the six accounts. I was surprised at how easy it was to put the freeze in place – it seems to be the singular action that most people make on their user portals, so it was front and center. Here is what the freeze page looks like at Equifax.
If in the future I want to lift a credit freeze, they make it very simple. In fact, you can lift a freeze for only a specific amount of time (I.e lift it for a day when the car dealership is running your credit). It unfreezes and then automatically refreezes.
There is certainly a hassle factor to be considered but if you have no plans to open a line of credit, I think it is something worth considering for added peace of mind.
Happy Planning,
Alex
This blog post is not advice. Please read disclaimers.